If you are an avid viewer of Ghost Adventures and Most Haunted then it would be fair to assume that paranormal investigating is full of frights and jumps every night. If you also watch these shows you would also think that we get scratched and catch full body apparitions on camera on a regular basis. However, you would be wrong. These shows are created for entertainment purposes and to give the viewer a cheap scare. Not saying I don’t, love these shows, cause I do, but I am now fully aware that a lot of hours of filming go into one 45 minute long show.

When I first started doing investigations I was pretty scared, I’m not gonna lie. I expected spirits to whisper in my ear, to be pushed, scratched and intimidated. Maybe I haven’t been to the right places yet, but so far I haven’t experienced this. What I have experienced can’t be explained. What I have experienced is so subtle that a camera crew would not be able to capture it. Spirit does not have to be aggressive and obvious to be noticed. When you walk into a building and you suddenly cannot breath as the air and atmosphere is thick, how would a TV show convey this? When your heart starts pounding because you feel yourself being stared down by someone or something you cannot see, how would a TV show convey this? The majority of interaction with spirits can not be seen, only felt.

One thing we always mention to our guests at the beginning of investigations is that sometimes we might not get any communication at all. That is OK. Spirits are not performing monkeys, hanging out in buildings waiting for our beck and call. One thing that genuine paranormal groups will never do is fake evidence. We would rather the guests go away and think the night was ‘boring’ that make accusations that a group is faking activity. Paranormal groups strive off of their reputations and a cheap thrill will never come before integrity. So if your night with a local paranormal group DIDN’T seem like an episode of Most Haunted then I would say stick with that group, as sooner or later you never know what you might encounter, at least you know it wasn’t faked.

The paranormal industry is becoming saturated with people trying to get their five minutes of fame by releasing a video full of cheap jumps and obvious scare tactics that genuine videos of subtle paranormal evidence are getting overlooked. I have realised that something doesn’t have to jump out at you to show you it is there, if a spirit can communicate through a flickering light or by changing the atmosphere in the room then I am satisfied with the investigation.

Being told that you are going to be investigating 30 East Drive certainly stirs the emotions. I was so excited, I was getting to be a team member with Ghostly Goings On, and I was also scared, the house has a reputation for being terrifying. I was being thrown in at the deep end and I loved it.
My application form for the role of paranormal investigator with my local paranormal group had been shortlisted and I was to participate in some investigations to see if I was cut out to do this job. I had put the pressure on to rise to the challenge, I wanted to do a good job for the team and I wanted to prove to myself I could do this.

So on the 28th of September Becky, Simon and myself headed to Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, to head to the infamous 30 East Drive. I learned all about previous events at the house and the resident spirit Fred. People had been touched, people had seen dark shadows and people had heard voices. We were going to be sleeping over and I was told that previously other team members had their air beds lifted off the floor and someone’s belt, that was on the other side of the room, started to jangle. I was starting to crap myself a little, i’m not gonna lie.

We got to the house at about 6.15pm and as we entered we said hello to ‘Fred’ (I wasn’t going to risk disrespecting an angry spirit). We started to set up the equipment as the 9 other guests would be arriving at 8pm and Becky and Simon gave me a walk through of the house. These were some of the pictures I took.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

When you first walk in there is a certain smell, it smells old and the decor is very dated which I think adds to the ambiance of the house. But one thing I cannot explain is the feeling as you walk upstairs, the weight of the house sweeps over you, it feels like you are wading through deep water. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, it is as if the air is thick with energy.

The guests started arriving at 8pm and we started the investigation at 8.30pm. We all congregated in the living room and set up various equipment around the lower part of the house. We put a 360 parascope in the dining room, which is a light activated static electricity meter (I think that is the technical description), and some light activated motion sensors in the hallway. While we were all sat in the living room, willing the spirits to make their presence known, the motion sensor lights would come on in the hall wall and the 360 parascope would start to light up in various shades of reds, greens and blues.

Some guests could see a dark shadow in the dining room right by where the parascope was detecting static electricity, and one lady felt like her face was burning (which has been a common response to the spirits in the house).

We went up into one of the bedrooms and tried to call out the spirits with the help of an p-sb7 box and an Alice Box app. The p-sb7 box scans through radio frequencies at high speed and spirits can use this to talk through. The Alice box is a programme that allows spirits to select words from a database in response to your questions.

When we were in the bedroom with the double bed on of the guests called Kat called out to fred ‘Come on Fred, show us what you got,’ and the Alice Box spelled out Dog. Then Kat said ‘Oi Fred, are you calling me a dog?’ and another piece of equipment called the Echovox (which uses a database of phonemes to audibly respond to questions) replied ‘Woof.’ Everyone in the room laughed so much, it was hilarious to see such a calculated and witty response and all the equipment coincided with each other.

People also reported getting touched my unseen forces, many guests had their head tickled or their back poked and there was many cold spots throughout the evening. I know from speaking to the other two investigators and guests that have been to 30 East Drive before, that this was a relatively quiet night in terms of activity. Well, if this was a quiet night I can’t image how active the other nights must be.

I had an amazing time at 30 East Drive and I can’t wait to participate in another investigation and I hope we get even more evidence.

Like this:

So, I was filling out an application form the other day for an awesome job in the paranormal field and I added my blog to the ‘About Me’ section. It was then that I realised I hadn’t updated my site in over 18 months, BUT I have a good reason. I now have a gorgeous 14 month old little girl and she is happy and healthy and that is what has taken all my time this previous 18 months. So, I have decided to polish off the keyboard and start to blog again. I can’t believe I have missed out on all these opportunities to blog about so many amazing shows and films that have been released this past year. Like, who saw Stranger Things?! It was bloody awesome and I am itching for another season. I have also heard there is to be a Netflix series about Slender Man, and Stephen King’s IT is currently being filmed for release in 2017. SO much is going on and I am back.

Reincarnation is the belief that after we die our soul can begin a new life in a new body. Like a fresh start, metaphorically wiping the slate clean and starting all over again without any knowledge of our previous existence. Children have been recalling details from ‘past lives’ for thousands of years but in the western world the belief in reincarnation is wholly dismissed. In Asia however, where the idea of being born again is strongly adhered, there have been a large number of reincarnation cases involving children and the evidence to back up these claims is startling.

Ian Stevenson, MD, spent over 40 years researching the ideology around reincarnation up until his death in 2007. He mainly focuses on children as he believed they had less reason to make stuff up, and specifically children from Asia as children from the western world, due to rejecting the idea of reincarnation, were often stifled by their parents beliefs.

Out the 2500 children he studied almost half of the cases were objectively validated and supported the idea of reincarnation. He found a pattern among the children that could help identify future cases of past life experiences and could help differentiate between an over active imagination and a genuine case of reincarnation.

1) As soon as the child can communicate they reject their family and name.

Children will often be heard saying that their family is not their real family and that their real family live in a different location, often mentioning a town or place that the child has never been to. The child will also be able to confidently recount the names of their past life family and describe the house he or she grew up in. Often these details are the ones that are used to validate the claims of reincarnation.

2) Recalling traumatic deaths.

Ian found that in over 50% of cases the children could recall a traumatic or premature death from their previous life and if there was a specific would through either a gun or knife wound, there was usually a scar or birthmark that coincided with these claims.

3) Child knows names of people they have never met.

In cases where they child is able to meet their past life family the child is able to identify the names of everybody as well as revealing secrets and information that only the family would have known. As a result the family from the past life often accept the claims that the child is in fact their deceased relative. A long lasting bond is usually established between the child and family.

4) Gender usually stays the same.

In 90% of cases the child remains the same sex that they occupied in the previous lifetime. Personality traits and preferences are also mostly the same from one incarnation to another.

5) Physical appearance can remain similar.

Ian Stevenson studied Suzanne Ghanem in the late 1960’s, when she was a small child. At 16 months of age, Suzanne pulled the phone off the hook as if she was trying to talk into it and said, over and over, “Hello, Leila?” The family didn’t know who Leila was. When she got older, Suzanne explained that Leila was one of her children and that she was not Suzanne, but Hanan. A photograph of Hanan was available, but it wasn’t until Stevenson revisited Suzanne 1998 that he found that Suzanne, now a grown woman, had the same facial features as her past incarnation.

Hanan and Suzanne look very similar.

Below is a documentary about a young boy called Cameron who believes he grew up and died in Barra, 200 miles from where he currently lives in Glasgow. Watch the documentary and make up your own conclusion. Just an active imagination? Or something much more incredible?

This experience is from Paul Green – Author, Radio Presenter and Psychic Medium.

A PRIVATE HOME IN BLYTH

I have come across many examples of problems at homes and work places during my mediumship career so far, but a few stands out from the rest, either due to the peculiarity of the activity or the reasons behind it. The first example starts with a tale of me being tracked down that is almost as interesting as the story of the haunting. I used to get collected on a regular basis by the same taxi driver after attending bike club meetings; on the journey to my home, we would chat about this and that but over the months, she learned about my “sideline” as a psychic medium. The conversations would often turn to my gift, nothing remarkable about that until much later in my life. I had moved into my present home and had not encountered this woman since moving, she had changed cab companies and I for various reasons ceased to go to the pub as regularly as i had used to.

It was a great surprise one morning to answer a ring on my doorbell to find her standing on my doorstep. At first I assumed she was simply at the wrong address but then she began asking if I “still did the spooky stuff”. Confirming I did still do “spooky stuff” she asked if I could help out a friend. It appeared she had somehow tracked me down through a series of links and friends of friends even though I had moved 2 years ago. Once I was over the surprise, I listened to her tale.

A friend of hers was so afraid of the activity in her home she was spending all day wandering the local park or town centre until she had to return home to collect the children from school. After finding out a bit more about the situation, I agreed to visit the house but first I called a fellow medium to sort out a time and date we could both go. In cases such as this, it is normal for mediums to work in pairs, simply as an insurance in case either one is badly effected by any energies encountered.

The day come and we both met outside the address given, it was a typical end terrace house with a nice view over a local park. Upon ringing the bell, we were greeted by a tallish woman with very short hair. Without having to use any psychic sense, you could see the worry etched on her face, the medium accompanying me, a woman called Helen, works differently from me.

Helen always stops on the doorsteps of a home and asks any energy within permission to enter, while I, with my typical “in your face style” charge in with attitude written all over me, once inside we found a group consisting of the woman who had greeted us, her partner from a civil partnership and our mutual friend the taxi driver, as always, i asked that they told us nothing except any areas in the home they do not wish us to go.

I always ask this, as I never forget that we are in someone’s home, in this case, we were given a free reign to go where we wanted. Helen and I at the same time instinctively went upstairs. As I took the lead, we started to climb the stairs. We encountered an elderly spirit man who attempted to block our path but I insisted he move aside.

I have no idea why he wanted to block us other then maybe he already felt that some “strange people” had already invaded his home and we were just another example. At the top of the stairs on the landing was a bookcase, which we later learned that this man used to move the books around on, this was just one of the ways he was attempting to make his presence known to the rest of the household. Helen and I also discovered that this chap used to like to hover on the step leading into the toilet; he felt he could see most of the coming and going from there. However, apart from this man there were no other spirit energies around i felt sure we had found the source of the problems. Neverless, we still needed to complete our tour of the house to be sure, so Helen and i descended back down to the ground level, this time with Helen taking the lead. She was drawn into a small room at the bottom of the stairs that appeared to be used now as a room to cope with the usual “overspill” of any family. While she went into that room, I popped my head into the front family room; there was nothing really of interest from a mediumship point of view so after a few minutes I returned to the hallway. Helen was stood inside the small room at the bottom of the stairs, she was rooted to the spot and appeared to have some problems breathing. Her breath was coming in short rasping gasps so I wasted no time and simply grabbed her by the collar and dragged her out, sometimes the solution to a paranormal problem does not have to be mystical. She told me that the stench of pipe tobacco and the feeling of being short of breath had been overwhelming in that room.

Once she had recovered we as a pair ventured back into the room, we were greeted by the same old chap we met on the stairs, he then started to talk to us. He was called Charles, not Charlie but Charles, he was very insistent of that. He told us that when he and his wife were both alive moved to Blyth as he was taking up a job at “the docks”, I could not quite gather if this meant Blyth port or the shipyard that used to be there.

He said he was employed as some sort of draughtsman but he was not from the northeast and had moved into the area to take up this job. He was most definitely an in charge style of man and yet very reserved, he did not mix well and he seemed to have a low opinion of the people he worked with in Blyth, therefore, his life while alive revolved around him, his wife and the house we were standing in.

All was well until to his absolute disgust, his wife “died on him”, even as he communicated with us, you could clearly sense the utter bewilderment and loss he felt at the death of his wife. He felt totally abandoned and really did not have the skills to care for himself. As he aged he ended up living, sleeping, eating and existing in the room we were in, the same room Helen had experienced the breathing problems.

As we started to understand and have empathy with this man, he began to ask questions of us. This led us to begin to understand the reason for the recent paranormal activity that had so terrified the present homeowner. He preferred to address his questions to me for no other reason than the fact i was male. For many years after his death he claimed he liked to pop back to the house, but until now he had not attempted to make his presence known, being happy just to draw comfort from revisiting his home. It seems that what prompted him now to try and get attention was his complete and utter lack of comprehension on the situation.

In short, when the two life partners “married” and moved in together, it seemed he felt he had to make himself known, he was unhappy and did not understand the situation or approve. Even from beyond the grave often we find that people’s personalities do not change, he turned out to be a nice enough guy, but was just bewildered by the situation. Once i explained how upsetting his activities were to the occupants his attitude changed. He had never intended to scare anyone, he simply wanted some answers, in addition, I pointed out that if any of the children living in the property came across any of his activities it would be scary for them.

He was most apologetic and concerned, we reached an agreement that he would still pop back in and see this old home but the visits would be not made ‘public so to speak. After a little more chat and even him asking for assurances that I was not playing a practical joke on him regarding the two women being married, he left the room and house. Helen and I spent a little more time checking there were no other spirit people in the home then we did a standard cleansing of the whole house and added some layers of protection to it. We joined the rest of the people in the kitchen and over a coffee we learned some more of the experiences and events that had caused so much concern.

The owner told of finding the same kitchen chair over turned every time she left the room, no matter if it was for 2 minutes or overnight, it looked as if someone had taken the time to place it in that position rather then it falling or being pushed over. She showed us scrawls using crayons that had appeared overnight on sheets of paper left in a locked room, they started to leave these sheets out because the walls and table tops were being scratched or drawn on. Most of the attempted were just lines or meaningless scratching but some appeared to be crude attempts at forming letter and words, after some more advice Helen and I left the house and to date there has been no further problems with the ex-owner who i feel sure even now is not totally convinced that the whole thing is not the Geordies winding up an outsider.

Like this:

I am going to do a weekly ‘This is YOUR Horror’ post where you can share your real life paranormal experiences. If you want to be a part of this and you feel like you have something to share then please email me lea.burnam@hotmail.com.

Pictures and soundbites are welcome as i know spirits like to communicate in a variety of ways 😉

If you feel sick, full of dread, or uneasy looking at this picture then you are not alone.

This painting was created by artist Bill Stoneham in 1972. It depicts a young boy stood next to a sinister doll against a glass door, if you look closely you can seen small hands behind the door reaching towards the boy. According to the artist, the boy in the painting is based on a photograph of the artist when he was 5 years old.

The painting was originally purchased by actor John Marley, and sometime after Marley’s death, the painting was found on the site of an old brewery by an elderly Californian couple. Shortly after, the painting then appeared on the auction website eBay in February 2000.

According to the seller the painting carried some form of curse. The eBay description made a series of claims that the painting was haunted. Included in those claims were that the characters in the painting moved during the night, and that they would sometimes leave the painting and enter the room in which it was being displayed. Also included with the listing were a series of photographs that were said to be evidence of an incident in which the female doll character threatened the male character with a gun that she was holding, causing him to attempt to leave the painting.

A disclaimer was included with the listing absolving the seller from all liability if the painting was purchased.

News quickly spread about this haunted painting and the eBay page received over 30,000 views and the painting eventually sold for $1,025.00. The buyer, Perception Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, eventually contacted Bill Stoneham and related the unusual story of its auction on eBay and their acquisition of it. He reported being quite surprised by all the stories and strange interpretations of the images in the painting. Stoneham recalls that both the owner of the gallery in which the painting was first displayed, and the art critic who reviewed it, died within one year of coming into contact with the painting.

Now, when i was doing some research about this painting i entered ‘The Hands Resist Him’ into google and my computer froze. Then the internet wouldn’t work for me and disconnected, even though my partner was on his computer next to me and his internet was working fine.

Quite a bizarre painting to look at, not something that i would particularly want in my house for decorative purposes. Think i will just stick to some flowers or some candles.